Tavros Nitram
Tavros Nitram, also known by his Trollian handle , is one of the Trolls. His handle may refer to two things. One, the loss of his legs, as in "adios", the Spanish word for "good-bye". The other, "toreador" most likely refers to the Spanish term for bullfighting, which suits him, seeing his huge bull horns having to do with his associated zodiac sign, Taurus (♉). Due to an accident during one of his Flarping sessions, he has ended up a paraplegic. He types in reverse case, replacing periods with commas. However, he uses an excess of commas, giving the impression of uncertainty or stuttering. "Tavros" is Greek for "bull" and is also the Modern Greek pronunciation of the name "Taurus." His name resembles that of the Doctor Who villain Davros, the wheelchair-bound creator of the Daleks - this allusion may not be intentional, but it fits with his disability as well as his later acquisition of robotic parts. "Nitram" is "Martin" written backwards. There are two possible connections for this. Operation Taurus was the name of a planned prosecution by the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) against Martin McGuinness, and Mary Martin played Peter Pan in the 1954 musical. Nitram may also be derived from the word nitrates, which, when present at high levels in the water, produce a serious illness in fish called brown blood disease. He was a member of the Red Team. Biography Hivebent After entering the Land of Sand and Zephyr and creating a rocket wheelchair, Tavros spent most of his time on useless side quests, much to the dismay of his server player. After dealing with his side quest obsession for some time Vriska guides him to the gate leading to LOMAT where they meet up under awkward circumstances. They later come to an understanding of sorts and go treasure hunting together. During this period of mutual partership, he is seen riding on a Horsaroni with a lance at some point. We can't say how awesome this is. Since Tavros dislikes riding on animals that he communes with, it is likely that Vriska helped him learn how to fight during some of the parts of the main quest. They both traveled around on their matching rocket devices, until they are interrupted by an angry Aradiabot who promptly makes Vriska pay. Vriska is left in a near dead state but stops Tavros's reviving attempt through mind-controlling his hand with her newly awoken Dream Self. On her request he brings her to her Quest Cocoon, but can not bring himself to kill the girl, despite her screams and pleas for a quick death written all across the floor of the Quest Cocoon. He absconds and leaves her to bleed to death. This traumatized Tavros and he spent the rest of the game mostly asleep, seeking comfort on a now Vriska-free Prospit. Post-Hivebent Tavros had new robotic legs built for him after his session fled to their Veil. The legs were constructed by Equius, and his existing legs were . After learning of the humans, he attempted his trolling session on Dave's thirteenth birthday, just as Kanaya tried on Rose. Both mentioned how they were from the future and nonhuman, and both Dave and Rose pointed out their lack of skill at trolling. But while Kanaya eventually forged a kind of friendship with Rose, Dave met Tavros's weak attempts with a thoroughly effective homoerotic counter-troll, eventually causing Tavros to block him. Following his spectacular defeat, Tavros asked Rose what the best way to get on Dave's nerves would be. Rose told him that poetry would be the best option, and he seemed to decide to take her advice. He then trolled Dave with some unbelievably awful SICK RHYMES intended to humiliate him, although Dave completely ignored him. Tavros seemed very satisfied afterwards. .]] At first, he got along quite well with Jade, communicating with her while she dreamt on the dream world Prospit vicariously (on his iteration of Prospit, Tavros could once walk around without a wheelchair and fulfill his lifelong dreams of flight). He saved a younger Jade from shooting herself by communing with Becquerel and directing him to teleport the bullet away, though unfortunately it ended up shooting and killing Grandpa instead. However, Tavros saw no harm in this (until Jade explained it to him) because he believed Bec was her Lusus and Grandpa was an intruder. Tavros was then made aware of how Vriska had directly brought about the circumstances which created Bec Noir, and set out to stop her. He had more trouble, however, with another enemy he'd been warned about. Tavros proceeded to engage Vriska in the room where the inquisiclops was found. She managed to stop his charge, steal his weapon, and stab him with it. (She impales him in such a way that the lance pierces the circle of his "Taurus" shirt, a possible metaphor for "bullseye.") Tavros fell off the edge and into the darkness while Vriska watched, finally landing next to Terezi, where he was announced as . Terezi attempted to revive him, but it was no use, as his dreamself was killed by Jack Noir. After his death, he visited Coin Dave in a dream bubble, along with a God Tier Aradia. Tavros seemed incredibly excited to finally meet Dave in person, even if he was a dead temporal copy. Tavros' decapitated corpse was found by Terezi, along with Feferi, Equius and Nepeta's bodies, as well as Eridan's legs. It appears Gamzee placed his mutilated head on the ground in front of the jury's table. Gamzee later preserved his body until arriving in the post-Scratch Kids' session where he prototyped Tavros' and Vriska's remains with Jane's sprite, summoning the souls of Tavros and the now-dead Vriska to the session, and resulting in the birth of Tavrisprite. However, this fusion was short-lived, as Tavrisprite soon destroyed itself because the two sides were impossible to reconcile. After Tavrisprite's self-destruction, Tavros' ghost was returned with Vriska's to a dream bubble set in the Land of Sand and Zephyr. While Vriska began to complain about their temporary fusion Tavros stated that he felt they were overreacting and that it felt nice to feel true self esteem for once and be alive again. She agreed there was a silver lining, apologizing to Tavros for killing him. Vriska talks him into fucking shit up with her, to which he reluctantly agrees. Roleplaying He was mentioned to have partaken in the same extreme roleplaying that Terezi partook in. Tavros was a member of Team Charge alongside Aradia. His character is of the BOY-SKYLARK class, and is based on Tavros's hero, Pupa Pan. Both he and Aradia agree that although the class lacks power until it reaches a very high level, it is better to play and have fun, rather than be aggressive and treasure hungry like other players. During one session, his clouder, Vriska, used her mind control powers to force him to , which caused his paralysis. He then trolled Karkat and told him what happened. Karkat's response was to call him an asshole and tell him to stop playing games for girls. Personality Tavros is just too sensitive to be a decent troll, to the point where he even tries to help Jade. He sucks at trolling and usually ends up getting trolled himself, which he talks about here: . One the surface, he seems innocently ignorant of his own shortcomings as a troll, or mockery from others - Karkat says he's unable to truly hate anyone, even the thorn in his paw, Vriska. However, he copes with the negativity he faces from the other trolls by personifying his self-esteem, which he has named Rufio. Using a technique suggested by Kanaya, Tavros imagines that he talks to his self-esteem in the form of Rufio, and is careful not to let anything hurt Rufio's feelings. His misguided affair with self-esteem continues as he becomes Jade's fairy god troll, now assuming that a high self-esteem means not having to apologize for anything, even if he is at fault for it. Tavros also preferred his dream world over the waking world because he is indeed a paraplegic confined to a wheel chair. Before dying himself, he confides in Jade his disappointment over the fact that his dream self, and the dream selves of all the other trolls, have died, since he had more fun in the dream world. His time in the Dream Bubbles seems to have done him just as much good as Prospit - Tavros shows more balanced self-esteem and assertion as a ghost. He has decorated his room with posters of fairies/faeries and cards and marbles litter the floor. He uses a Jousting Lance, which is allocated to his lancekind strife specibus. He has the ability to commune with wildlife, and seems to be an Alternian Wildlife Master. His ability to commune with creatures extends to imps who would otherwise attack him; a cadre of imps and ogres accompanies Tavros into a temple, with one ogre carrying what appears to be a piece of a puzzle. Some of the most powerful lusii are within the reach of his commune powers as well, as demonstrated when Tavros was manipulated by Vriska to control Terezi's lusus. He is even able to commune with Bec. Relationships Thanks to his friendly attitude, Tavros gets along fairly well with most of the trolls. He has a close friendship with Gamzee Makara. Together, they form the worst rapping duo in the history of paradox space, and it is briefly indicated that Gamzee holds some redder feelings for him. He is also friends with Nepeta Leijon, Terezi and Kanaya. He doesn't particularly like Karkat. He used to play Flarp with Aradia, but he seems rather distant from her after her accident. After she ascended to God Tier and he died, they hung out together in dream bubbles. Tavros' biggest conflict comes in the form of Vriska. Vriska's desire to make him stronger, combined with her complicated feelings of both of love and hate towards him, have led her to bully, cripple, and unsuccessfully him. Meanwhile, a confused Tavros reacts with his usual passiveness, mixed with a bit of fear. Despite the weirdness and confusion, they develop a sort of mutual respect after Tavros for rejecting her advances during a memo with Karkat, and go off to adventure together on the Land of Maps and Treasure doing pointless side-quests. After Aradia warps in to deliver a revengemurder to Vriska, Tavros, either in an attempt to revive her via dream self, or satisfy his rather pushy and angry exile, almost kisses the girl. Vriska quickly by forcing him to choke himself, manipulating his arm to write out her bloody messages, and having Tavros use his rocket car to fly her to her Quest Bed for her God Tier ascension. Unfortunately, he flees in fear of Vriska's increasingly hysterical and bloody pleas for him to kill her before she painfully bleeds to death, adding to the frustration which ultimately leads to his death by her hands. His exile, Hearts Boxcars, orders him to kiss Vriska several times. The first time Boxcars was commanding him, he was on the floor after crashing into Vriska's hive and cannot kiss the girl because he's paralyzed. After watching him fail to kiss the girl a second time, Hearts Boxcars gives up on Tavros completely. It is unknown why he is so determined to have Tavros kiss that girl, but it may have something to do with the symbol he wears. Early on it was speculated that he had romantic feelings towards Dave, but this can be explained as him basing his Sick Burns on human phrases he had seen before, and/or being just terrible at trolling. He is fond of Jade and confessed to red feelings for her, but his incredibly clumsy approach combined with misdirected pride at killing her grandfather and over-stated confidence drove her away. She later decided to allow him to commune with Bec, which was soon made irrelevant by his death. Lusus/Kernelsprite Tavros's Lusus is a small creature with a proportionately gigantic bull head with huge horns shaped similarly to Tavros's own (and even more like Pupa Pan's). The Lusus was affectionately dubbed 'Tinkerbull' by the forums, and later referred to as Tinkerbull by Tavros himself. They seem to have a very good relationship, often playing Fiduspawn together. Tinkerbull was soon killed when Tavros accidentally ran over it in his wheelchair. Later, Tinkerbull is prototyped into Tavros's kernelsprite, and is seen floating outside of his transported hive, later disappearing with the other sprites when Tavros' Sgrub quest ended. Trivia *Tavros's Boy Skylark hat matches the one from John's Boy-Skylark echeladder rung, and the hat Pupa Pan is wearing on the poster matches another echeladder hat of John's. Category:Homestuck Protagonists/Allies Category:Homestuck Trolls